Bond hearings (Aug. 16, 2012)The following people appeared during felony bond hearings Friday at the Pope County Detention Center. Their names, ages, anticipated charges and bond amounts are listed. If charged, they will appear Sept. 24 in Pope County Circuit Court. • Adam Baker, 20, delivery of a controlled substance — $7,500. During the last six months, agents with the Fifth Judicial Drug Task Force through the use of a confidential informant allegedly purchased 3.7 gra...

2 arrested after police chaseTwo Little Rock men were arrested early Tuesday after they allegedly committed a burglary and then led police on a chase from Atkins to Morrilton. At 11:52 p.m., Atkins Police Department received a burglary alarm at Tobacco Town on North Church Street and while en route, an officer noticed a vehicle leave the store and proceed east on Interstate 40, according to testimony by Pope County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Michael Lydon. Lydon said t...

Drug charges dropped because of too much evidenceIOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A fugitive doctor charged in the nation's largest prosecution of Internet pharmacies is getting off in part because there's just too much evidence: more than 400,000 documents and two terabytes of electronic data that federal authorities say is expensive to maintain. Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 in a multimillion dollar scheme that involved selling prescription drugs to patients who were never examined or even int...

Drew Peterson judge again rebukes prosecutorsJOLIET, Ill. (AP) — An increasingly exasperated judge at former police officer Drew Peterson's murder trial delivered his strongest rebuke of prosecutors yet on Wednesday after a pathologist spoke about crawling into the bathtub where Peterson's third wife was found dead. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Peterson, 58, killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio, whose 2004 death was initially ruled accidental. Savio's body was re-examined and he...

Family: Texas shootout gunman had mental illnessCOLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — In the months leading up to Monday's shootout near Texas A&M University that killed three, gunman Thomas Alton Caffall III had cut off contact with his family, even though his mother was seriously ill. Caffall's family said the 35-year-old told them he had his own issues, an unspecified mental illness they declined to comment on. On Monday, Caffall opened fire on a law enforcement officer who was trying to serve h...

Police reconstruct handcuffed shootingLITTLE ROCK (AP) — Police in Arkansas released a video reconstruction Tuesday meant to show how a 21-year-old man who was handcuffed behind his back could have shot himself in the head while in the backseat of a patrol car. In the video, an officer played the part of Chavis Carter, a Southaven, Miss., man who died from a gunshot wound to the temple on July 28 despite being frisked twice by Jonesboro police officers. Carter was black and both o...

Bond hearings (Aug. 14, 2012)The following people appeared during felony bond hearings Friday at the Pope County Detention Center. Their names, ages, anticipated charges and bond amounts are listed. If charged, they will appear Sept. 24 in Pope County Circuit Court. • Jonathan C. Rogers, 29, delivery of a controlled substance — $25,000. During the last six months, agents with the Fifth Judicial Drug Task Force (DTF) partnered with the Arkansas State Police (ASP) through t...

Local meth arrests rise sharply in two yearsLocal law enforcement officials report that arrests related to methamphetamine have risen sharply in recent years as agents have targeted those who use, sell and distribute the illegal drug. According to statistics provided by the Fifth Judicial District’s Prosecuting Attorney, methamphetamine-related charges are going up, with numbers of arrests rising significantly over the past two years. In 2010, 85 methamphetamine-related charges were fil...

Police embrace emerging social media toolSAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Minutes after a shooting near the Oakland Airport this year, the gunman was on the loose. And police Sgt. Chris Bolton quickly fired off a flurry of text alerts to thousands of nearby residents through a social media tool for law enforcement agencies. "Stay out of area," said one alert. "Multiple shooting victims reported. Medical on-scene. Police are evacuating a nearby, affected business." Officers would eventually disco...

Doctors target gun violence as a social diseaseMILWAUKEE (AP) — Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease. What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose. One exam...

Family of man shot in patrol car awaits answersLITTLE ROCK (AP) — Relatives of a young man shot in a patrol car while his hands were cuffed behind his back insisted that he wasn't the type of person to kill himself and questioned how officers searching him failed to find a gun. Police in Jonesboro, Ark., initially said Chavis Carter, 21, shot himself in the head with a gun he concealed after officers stopped a truck he was riding in. The officers searched Carter twice and found a small bag...

US Marshals arrest local manU.S. marshals, assisted by the Russellville Police Department, apprehended a Russellville man Thursday suspected in an aggravated assault out of Lithonia, Ga. U.S. marshal Clifton Massanelli of Little Rock said Johnathan Van Duncan was arrested on a warrant from the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia for allegedly shooting another man in the leg with a firearm on July 5. Massanelli said after determining Duncan had an Arkansas address, po...

Bond Hearings (Aug. 10, 2012)The following people appeared during felony bond hearings Friday at the Pope County Detention Center. Their names, ages, anticipated charges and bond amounts are listed. If charged, they will appear Sept. 10 in Pope County Circuit Court. • Mike Kovash, 30, two counts delivery of a controlled substance — $5,000. Kovash turned himself over to authorities on a warrant filed July 30 for allegedly selling marijuana twice to a confidential informant...

Expungement law ruling appeal filedLITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock traffic judge’s ruling that a 2011 law that allows judges to expunge certain misdemeanor convictions, including drunk driving, is unconstitutional is being challenged in circuit court, a Russellville attorney said Friday. Debra Reece, attorney for a man who wants his 10-year-old DWI conviction expunged under Act 626 of 2011, said she filed the appeal in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Wednesday. The legal challenge ...

Colorado suspect impressed Ill. neuroscience programDENVER (AP) — The Colorado theater shooting suspect left a good impression on people he met in his pursuit of a neuroscience career, with a reference describing him as having a "great amount of intellectual and emotional maturity." That account came in a recommendation letter sent to the University of Illinois' neuroscience program as part of James Holmes' application to the school last year. The names of those who wrote the letter were blacke...

Delaware doctor accused of 'waterboarding' daughterDOVER, Del. (AP) — The daughter of a Delaware pediatrician who has appeared on national TV for his research on near-death experiences told investigators he "waterboarded" her several times by holding her face under a running faucet. An attorney for Dr. Melvin Morse described the waterboarding description as an "attention-getter" by authorities, based on an allegation from an 11-year-old who had made a false abuse claim against a family member ...

Man killed by Little Rock police in shootingLITTLE ROCK (AP) — Little Rock police say a man has been shot and killed by an officer responding to a domestic disturbance call. Sgt. Cassandra Davis told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (http://bit.ly/N0Ueq9 ) that two officers responded to the call about 4:30 p.m. and found a man and woman arguing inside the home. Davis says only that the man was shot during an "altercation" with the officers and that he died after being taken to a local hosp...

Mountain Home woman’s body found in her homeMOUNTAIN HOME (AP) — Baxter County authorities are investigating the death of a Mountain Home woman who was found unresponsive in her home by her husband. Sheriff John Montgomery says 36-year-old Kiela Boelkens was found in the home shortly after 9:30 a.m. and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Montgomery says the body is being sent to the Arkansas State Medical Examiner’s Office in Little Rock to determine the cause and manner of ...